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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

健

jiàn
strong; robust; vigorous
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • radical 人
  • 11 strokes
  • 伣

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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ɡans): semantic 亻 (“person”) + phonetic 建 (OC *kans).

Perhaps from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *(g/k)aː(r/l) (“solid, congealed, frozen, viscous, strong”), and cognate with Burmese ခဲ (hkai:, “to freeze”) (STEDT).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • inheritedProto-Sino-Tibetan*(g/k)aː(r/l) “solid, congealed, frozen, viscous, strong”
  • meaningChinese人 “man; person; people (Classifier: 個／个 m c; 隻／只 h)”
  • soundChinese建 “to build; to construct; to erect”
    • ideaChinese廴 “to stride”
    • ideaChinese聿 “original form of 筆／笔 (bǐ, “writing brush; pencil”)”

Related: Burmese ခဲ

Words built on it: 健康, 健全

Meanings

character
  1. strong; robust; vigorous
  2. healthy; in good health
  3. adeptly; energetically
  4. a surname

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

健：伉也。从人建聲。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 剛強而有力。 例：天行健，君子以自強不息。（《易經．乾卦．象約曰》）
  2. 生理、心理情況良好。 例：健康、健朗、保健
  3. 擅長。指在某方面的能力特別強。 例：健談、健步如飛
  4. 容易。 例：健忘

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 健 was written 字形演變

  1. 健 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 健 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 健